Lab News

Simone received his Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology in 2020, from the Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy. He joined the Corn Lab in July 2021 and his research interest involves understanding overall cell biology and how disbalances in fundamental molecular processes cause diseases. He seeks to engage in translational medicine, to contribute developing novel functional therapeutic treatments.

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Sam received his Bachelor’s degree in Health Science and Technology from ETH Zürich in 2021. He joined the Corn Lab as a Master student in May 2021 working on a CRISPR-based approach to validate and functionally characterise regulators and receptors involved in ER-phagy. His research interests include genome engineering, functional genomics, cancer and neuropathy.

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One of our postdocs, Amos Liang, will be setting up his own research group at the Medical Research Council-Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC-PPU) at the University of Dundee in June 2022. His group will expand on his previous work to understand the mechanisms and physiological roles of endoplasmic reticulum turnover via autophagy using CRISPR-based gene editing and genome-wide screening technology, fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), mass spectrometry, fluorescence microscopy, and biochemical studies. We wish him all the best and we are excited for what the future holds for his new lab!

For more information on the research focus of Amos’ group, please visit here.

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Dani received the Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and her research goals are to develop new technologies that advance our understanding of fundamental biology, as well as increase the safety and efficacy of gene editing in human cells. She plans to approach this in two ways. First, how does chromatin state affect CRISPR-Cas activity at a single cell level? Second, can we manipulate the chromatin landscape to increase gene-editing strategies?

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Congratulations to Mandy and team for winning the audience vote at the ETH 3Pi Pitch Competition, where ETH Pioneer Fellows pitched their projects to an audience of 100 people in the startup community: https://www.startupticker.ch/en/news/eth-zurich-awards-best-pitches

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Our lab retreat for 2021 was held in Zermatt, in view of the Matterhorn. We spent the first day doing extemporaneous speed talks (3 minutes maximum!) and discussing lab business like scientific directions, funding, and teaching. Plenty of free time in the evening, and a nice dinner with the lab and family. On the second day we finished up the formal program with more speed talks (any topic, just try to incorporate what you learned from the first session) and an overview of ETH’s rETHink project.

Everyone then took a cable car up to Schwarzsee and either did a short hike (~2 hrs) to Trockener Steg or a medium hike up to Hörnlihütte and then all the way back down to Zermatt (~5 hrs). On the third (optional) day, a few intrepid souls took a much longer hike from Täsch over Pfulwepass, down to the Findelgletscher valley, and then back up to Gornergrat via Hohtälligrat (~12 hrs).

It was wonderful to have everyone together in a beautiful and relaxing setting. More pictures from the retreat are here.

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We are excited to share the news that Eric Aird and John Fielden were both awarded EMBO long-term fellowships, which support excellent postdoctoral researchers throughout Europe and the world. Congratulations both!

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Xiaojing received her Ph.D. from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science in 2020, working with Dr. Scott Keeney on the mechanism to regulate meiotic DSB formation. Xiaojing joined the Corn Lab in March 2021 with interests in studying DNA damage repair and implementation of therapeutic gene editing.  

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Danielle received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 2021 where she worked with Dr. James Haber to characterize the mechanisms of gene editing via single strand template repair. Danielle joined the Corn lab in April 2021 and her interests lie in further understanding the mechanisms of DNA damage and utilizing these insights to develop tools to edit the genome.

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